


Mistaking it for Laughter

by jonasnightingale



Series: Heavy Accents & Swollen Ankles [10]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst, Comments are love, Idiots in Love, Rollisi, Tumblr Prompt, Undercover, no beta we die like men, otp: I just want her to be happy, otp: not just tonight
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:41:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28068723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonasnightingale/pseuds/jonasnightingale
Summary: From a tumblr post for fake married. Despite no longer being a cop, Carisi winds up undercover with Rollins, playing hubby and wife for the weekend.
Relationships: Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr./Amanda Rollins
Series: Heavy Accents & Swollen Ankles [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1595524
Comments: 58
Kudos: 77





	1. Chapter 1

This week was going to break her heart. Plain and simple, no escaping it. Come Tuesday she would be scraped empty. 

She had been looking forward to this undercover gig, excited to spend some more time with a version of Hasim, eager to see the ring leaders rightfully behind bars. Weeks of work and the scheduled meet time was finally upon them, when the phone rang… Khaldun had been knocked unconscious on shift, was on overnight watch in the hospital, wouldn’t be cleared in time. And there was Liv, looking at Sonny stood behind her with a curious gleam in her eyes and raised eyebrow. 

So here they were, Mr and Mrs Caruso, matching rings adorning her and Dominick’s left hands. 

She was so worried that come the end of this operation, the whole squad would know. That they would see the expression in her gaze when she met his eyes and just _know._ There was a softness there that she couldn’t control, a connection between them that would now be streamed live to a van full of cops thanks to the thick frames around his eyes. 

Liv had pulled Sonny aside and discretely asked him “You sure about this?”, and Amanda feels her gut twist when she lingers on the way he’d responded, “What else can we do? It’ll be fine.”. Still, being beside him, shoulders bumping and exchanging smiles, she feels her heart rate pick up. Stupid traitorous heart. 

They’re in the hotel for a weekend, two days one night. There’s a convention going on which conveniently acts as a cover for a sex trafficking ring. Day one is check-in day; claim the room, get settled in, attend a big dinner and networking event, be seen. Day two they make the trade, hand over the suitcase lined with the payment, make the bust. As far as UC gigs go, it’s a pretty sweet deal, five star accomodation and gourmet meals. But every time Sonny’s hand drifts to her hip she has to remind herself that this isn’t real. _Just an act, just an act, just an act._

There’s something in his eyes she can’t read, and even with the glasses she finds herself watching them, trying to decipher the firmly ensconced veil there. She plays up the open bar, giggles brightly, burrows into his arm. She already feels her heart shattering. His form pressed beside hers had been so familiar once upon a time, his cologne in her nose, his laugh bouncing against her ribs. His arm around her shoulder reminds her of what she’d lost, or maybe what she hadn’t really had.

These kinds of thoughts had been sneaking into her routine with alarming frequency lately. Ever since Bucci. She lay awake at nights wondering if her worst fear had manifested, if she had somehow become her mother. She watched Liv navigate the absence of Barba and knew how easily that could be her. So to have him here like this - lips gruffly brushing against her hairline as he excuses himself for the bathroom - is a special kind of torture. She tries to not think about Monday, when the sting is done and he’ll draw back, throw more walls between them. 

Instead she indulges the act, lets her fingers trail over his skin, his shoulders, his hair. She tries to memorise every reaction, every jumping muscling, every caught breath. She presses a nuzzling kiss against his jaw and tries to ignore the sigh that escapes his lips, tries to not debate if it was an instinct or a character choice. Her voice is rough, more Amanda than Mandy when she grabs his hand, “Dance with me?”. Doctor Hanover was going to crucify her next week.

She knows his eyes are sweeping the room, sending visuals of potential suspects back to the team, she knows this isn’t real. But his hands are steady on her hips, his stubble brushing torturously against her bare shoulder. She’s spent many nights against his side, flanks pressed tight over drinks, shoulders bumping on her couch, she’s cried into his chest, and flung her arms around him in joy, but this is different. The sway of his form so firm against hers. The heave of his breaths so pronounced. It’s so easy to fall into him, let the distance between their bodies dissipate. His lips brush against the shell of her ear and she feels her pulse spike, “Two o’clock, man in grey.” She fights the shudder at his timbre, lets him swing them further aside so she can see the man watching them. 

———

All in all it had been a successful night; they had mingled and danced and drank and chatted. They’d made the necessary introductions, charmed the required people. They were giddy and in love and high on the prospect of tomorrow. And more than one person had commented on what a handsome couple they made. Amanda could already envision the look on Fin’s face when he would parrot those lines back to her next week. 

Mandy and Dom were effervescent, busy hands constantly in motion, always touching. The instant their door is closed on the hotel corridor that drops away, Carisi’s shoulders hunch and he steps sharply aside. Amanda and Dominick share none of the care-free glow their covers do. 

She lets her eyes follow his retreating back, takes in the lush queen bed in the centre of their room, tries to not think about Virginia, about motel doorways and single beds and all the ways their lives would have gone differently. She wonders how this gig would go with Hasim, if she would’ve let them cross this line so easily, let the press of bodies slip between cover and reality. He pulls the blinds closed and she dials Liv’s number, lets him place a room of distance between them. His smile is strained as she reports back that “Yeah, Carisi’s the perfect husband” to allay the Captains concerns, her laugh is bubbled with anxiety when he replies “Just hoping Rollins doesn’t snore.” Her eyes dart once more to the bed, yep, this weekend was definitely not what she had expected.


	2. Chapter 2

His breath is steady beside her, a comforting warmth that she fights to not pull against. She wants to burrow into him, drop her head against his shoulder, drape her arms across his chest. A part of her wonders how he would respond. But their history is a laundry list of times she had been too scared to take that step, and tonight there was nothing to hide behind. In Virginia it could have been chalked up to Southern nights, to not always having to act like a cop; even a month ago it could have been blamed on residual relief at making it home from Bucci’s abduction. But here? With someone else maybe, but with him? 

She traces the tumble of his ungelled hair, the rise and fall of his chest. He doesn’t move, eyes still closed as a grumble of “Rollins, go to sleep” reverberates from his lips. She rolls more securely towards him, tucks her hand beneath her cheek as she continues to watch him in silent contemplation. She’d thought about this before, about his head on a pillow beside hers; in her imaginings there was groaning awake to the noise of children, there was sleep heavy accents, there was nothing stopping her from reaching just that little bit further. 

He peeps open one eye and glances at her before letting out a deep sigh and turning to face her form. “You a’right?” She flutters her eyes briefly in a form of a nod, feels the foot of space between them like a block of ice against the warmth that is blooming in her chest. The words that come through her lips are quiet, soft, not at all the words she intended to voice. “You really will make the perfect husband some day, Dominick.” He looks at her, surprised, but she doesn’t take the words back. And so he settles further into the bed, mirrors her position on the mattress as his brow creases in an unspoken question. They let the silence blanket them, give in to the draw of this moment, the intimacy of just their breath in the space between them. The crease in his brow slips away and her fingers raise to brush his hair out of his face in a whisper of a caress. 

“Think you’ll ever marry?” There’s more to the question than she cares to unpack. To her, marriage had always been a restraint, a shackle tying you to bad situations, a contract to weather the beatings and the debt collectors and the fights, to stay through broken bottles and holes in walls and days when the water ran cold. Marriage was a bridle. She was happy without it, with her unconventional family and full control of the remote control. But then she meets his gaze, she thinks of a lifetime of nights spent just like this, of him crouched beside her wheelchair in that hospital corridor, of the photo on his desk and Jesse on his shoulders at the zoo.   
“I used to think, _never._ Between my folks and our jobs, ya know… But now, I don’t know. Maybe some day. For the right person.” He’s scared of pushing too hard, making her shut down, so he pauses and weighs the silence before daring to ask,  
“What’s changed between then and now?”   
She thinks for a while, not rushing to fill the silence with a witty retort and he watches with interest the pondering look on her face. There’s a glimpse of a small smile on her lips when she utters the simple answer, “Me.”

His heart blooms with an unrestrained tidal wave of adoration for the woman before him. The Amanda he’d met all those years ago could never have inhabited this quiet vulnerable moment, she had always had an escape plan, one hand on the door. The woman before him now doesn’t flinch at laying such a bold truth between them. These past months he’s felt more and more guarded with each passing day, but she’s been steadily shedding the barriers around herself. The way she had admitted to not being okay, fallen into his chest, clutched his lapel and cried into his jacket that day after Bucci; the way she had sadly shrugged and told him to hang in there that day during Toby Moore; even the words she’d yelled at him that day in the squadroom where all the chips were down… she wasn’t hiding any more, wasn’t keeping him at arms length. And he knows it’s different, the way she is with him, the thing they have together. It isn’t the in each others faces boil of tension that Nick and her had had. It isn’t the cut from the same cloth silent understanding she had with Barba. But he looks at her and there’s just a quiet searching in her eyes, a sadness and a resignation and a flash of traitorous hope. His eyes dart to her lips of their own accord. Just a fraction of a second. But she catches it and the air between them thickens. They’re both such fools.


	3. Chapter 3

Hope has never been a friend to her. It was the traitorous emotion that had her watching the porch-light from her window each night, waiting for her father to breeze back into their lives, expecting that this time things would be better; it was the bubble in her chest when she first thought APD could be her family, before they bared their teeth and turned their backs. Hope had her rolling dice and placing bets, crossing fingers and tapping superstitious patterns beneath billiard tables. Hope had her waiting for so many men to change. It lived in every phone call with her Mama, every conversation with Kim, every time she let her world be tossed upside down by the family who never bothered to stick around to clean up the mess. She held no stock in hope anymore. 

The scars of her childhood ran deep, deeper than she care admit. She felt them keenly these days, in the double-checking, in the second-guessing, in the doubt. When you grow up with an addict you stop trusting in the good times. You’re always looking for the hints - the clink at the bottom of the bin, the extra long bathroom break. Always monitoring conditions, always on guard. The good times are always followed by the bad; they stop being a cause for celebration, rather a warning sign. Times are always good when the happy juice is flowing, when the bet’s placed on a winner… but then comes the withdrawal, the hangover, the losing bet, the dry levy of a cashflow. 

Carisi’s eyes dart ever so briefly to her lips and something akin to hope flares bright and warm through her. It’s almost enough to want to run, to pull back, hide behind a joke or an off-hand comment. But no, she won’t call it hope. Instead she borrows a word from his book, thinks maybe it’s more analogous with faith. Faith that whatever happens next, they’ll weather this storm too. Faith that he’ll stick around. Faith that they owe each other too much to cut and run. She stays firm, makes sure he sees as her gaze rakes down his face and back up. 

And when she leans forward and feels the warm welcome of lips, she thinks faith is the perfect word, imagines whole choirs rejoicing Hallelujah. She envisions making the sign of the cross and giving thanks to some higher being for this and smiles against his mouth at the thought. 


	4. Chapter 4

Her lips are so gentle against his, the tension in the gap between their bodies so pronounced. Half a decade of wanting surges to in his gut and he winds his fingers tightly in her blonde locks. She moves closer, presses their forms together and he can’t find it in him to feel embarrassed by the groan he emits. It’s perfect. When he had dared imagined this moment he had pictured a frenzy, desperate hands constantly in motion, fingers always searching. This isn’t that. Sure there’s desperation in the push of lips, the slide of tongues, but their hands are steady, sure. Her palms are a sturdy pressure on his shoulder blades, his are nestled against her scalp, thumb rubbing an even pattern along the cusp of her ear. One of her hands moves, traces slowly down his spine to rest at it’s base, cold flesh sneaking beneath the cuff of his shirt and a shiver races up him. He kisses her more fervently, rolls onto her as their bodies meld together. 

He’s surprised that she lets him take control, gives herself over to him without the fight. Her knees are bracketing his hips, hair spilled out across the pillow and blue eyes watching him lazily as he pulls back to check her reaction. She reaches up, pulls him back down to her in a searing kiss. And then her hands are beneath his shirt again and he holds his breath as she pulls the garment over his head, his heart thudding painfully against his ribs. She lets out a small giggle when it snags on his ear and the grin that spills across his face in response is nothing short of smitten. 

She has one leg thrown across his back, the press of their hips together driving him mad. His mouth is on her neck, teeth scraping torturously against her pulse point, when she lets out a moan of “oh Dominick” and he shudders under her fingers. Her head is thrown back, his arms settled firmly on either side of her to keep their bodies close. He can feel the erratic breathing of her chest beneath his, the slight lift of her pelvis. His hand moves to her chest, drifts along her ribs. 

His mind cuts inexplicably to Virginia, to staring up at that water-stained roof thinking about her whilst she invited a stranger into her room. He pulls back, panting heavily into the space between them. She lifts her head, kisses her way from his chest up to his ear before dropping back to the pillow and soothing across his temples with her fingertips. Her expression is so soft, so open. She’s never looked at him like that before. “I can’t do this.” 

Her fingers still in their ministrations, her brow furrowing as her mouth drops open on a question. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” And he’s scrambling away, knocking her foot in his rush to just get off her. He bolts from the bed in search of his t-shirt, slamming it back over his head without care for it being inside out. She moves up the bed, arms propping her up against the pillows, and he hears the start of numerous aborted replies. “I… Wh… Ca…” before she falls silent. Her eyes still burn into his back and he can’t bear to turn to her, can’t bear whatever emotions he’ll find in her eyes. He sinks onto the edge of the bed, legs planted firmly against the floor. 

Her eyes rake over his slumped shoulders, catch on the tag of his shirt sticking up there, drift over his mused hair. The sigh that pushes against her lips is sad, frustrated. She’s mad at herself for once more pushing him for more, asking too much of him. It’s all she ever seems to do; when did she become such a burden on him? She thinks over the evolution of their friendship and realises, not for the first time, that it’s pretty much always been their way. And the second wave of emotion hits her - devastation, she’s heartbroken too.

Her voice is quiet in the loaded air between them, “Okay. Sorry, I… Goodnight.” He hears the shuffle of blankets, feels her weight move on the mattress. It’s minutes later when he braves a glance over to find her at the very edge of the bed, blanket cocooned high around her, back turned. He moves slowly, cautious of disturbing her as he lifts his knees onto the bed, curls up on top of the covers and watches the rise and fall of her pile of blankets. What the hell have they just done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it will be fixed.


	5. Chapter 5

“You can stop avoiding me. I’m not going to jump you again.”

She’s standing in his doorway, hip jutted sharply to the side and a weary line between her eyes. They’d won the case and yet here he was, tucked securely behind his desk instead of standing at the bar for the team celebration. Two beers in and the mix of anger and fear had prompted her to brave this discussion.

Because it had been almost two weeks. Almost two whole friggen weeks since she had sat in the tiny bathroom of the hotel room, hands clasped tightly over her lips, fighting off a panic attack. Two weeks since she had watched the light in the room flick on to spill under the doorway through red bleary eyes, watched his shadow fall across it, watched his shadow walk away. No spaghetti nights, no coffees whilst they waited for a verdict. It had been terse and professional and cold, and if sometimes she remembered the timbre of his groan or the slide of his palm on her flesh, the heat did nothing to compensate for the sudden absence of him from their world. 

“I’m not avoiding you Rollins.” It’s a sigh; weary, resigned. And she notes that he looks almost as exhausted as she feels. But it’s the stray hair that does her in - the one fly away curl that has snuck loose from its confines of gel. She closes the door to his office and drops unceremoniously into the chair opposite.  
“Yes. You are.” Her elbows drop staunchly onto her knees and she leans forwards, demands his attention. “I get it, I crossed a line. And Sonny? I’m sorry, okay. For a moment I thought…” She shakes her head slightly, closes her eyes for a moment too long, fights off the recollection of Hanover’s dissection of their relationship, “I didn’t mean to take advantage of the situation or make you uncomfortable. You have to know that’s the last thing I’d ever want to do.”  
He’s leant back on his chair, regarding her with a caged curiosity as his fingers clench and release around the fountain pen in them, “You thought what?”  
“What?”  
“For a moment you thought… what exactly?” She shrugs and ducks her eyes to the messy finger-painting on his wall, a present from Billie.  
“I wasn’t alone.” The words slip out of her before her brain catches up and her eyes go wide and dart to his in a flash of panic.  
“Wha-?” She cuts him off, eyes focused just slightly above his gaze.  
“I’m sorry, truly. Pushing you like that was-"  
“I don’t want your damn apology Rollins!” The words burst out of him and the ferocity in his tone takes them both by surprise. He runs a hand roughly down his face and she fixates on the tense line of his shoulders. Her response is a quiet whisper between them.  
“Then what do you want?”  
The moment is loaded, the weight of the potential in the air between them crushing her chest, she can’t manage a full breath as she awaits the move of his lips. His eyes are heavy on her, gauging.  
“If it wasn’t me - Khaldun, or another UC, whoever… was it just about… would it have mattered?”  
“What do you-?”  
He’s not mincing words when he replies, “You kissed me. I wanna know why.” And it takes all her willpower to not bite back a ‘ _well you kissed me back_ ’. The revelations she’d had with Bucci swim through her mind, the conversations in therapy about honesty and walls. She focuses her gaze on the back of the frame on his desk, steels her spine for what she’s about to reveal.  
“I just, want to. And I guess I got carried away with…” she puffs out an unamused laugh, “everything. If you’re asking if it would have happened with someone else, _maybe_. But if you’re asking if you were just a stopgap or a body or whatever notion you’ve got in that head of yours, emphatically no. Pushing anything on you was the furthest thing from my intention but… it was always about  you.”  
“Want to.” He states the words so plainly, leaning forward slightly in his chair. “Present tense.” It’s a statement and a question, and though his tone is perfunctory there is a query in his eyes. She flushes in embarrassment, ears hot and pink.  
“Yeah. Pretty much all the tenses.” She races to fill the space with apologies, assurances, but he swings his chair around the desk, moves til their knees are bumping and his eyes are burning into hers. 

Silence falls on the room. Her assuaging phrases frozen on her parted lips as his hand drifts onto her thigh - soft, cautious, testing. She can hear her heart bounding in the space between them. He nods, thinking, and pulls ever closer to her. His voice is a deep mutter when he breaks the blanket of hush, “So if I was to, say, get four tickets to the Outdoor Cinema screening of Trolls… Would you be my date?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this in an hour because I feel massive guilt about my lack of content. Sorry if it's shit.

**Author's Note:**

> “If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter. ”  
> ― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
> 
> I literally spent an hour trying to name this and came up blank so it is what it is and it might change when I post the next chapter.


End file.
